Sir Steven of Cupertino? According to a report in The Telegraph on Tuesday, Steve Jobs was almost given an honorary knighthood in 2009. The legendary Apple founder and CEO was to be honored for introducing products such as the iPhone and iPod, which revolutionized the industry. “Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at the time. “No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment.” But Jobs reportedly refused to speak at the Labour Party conference, and former Prime Minister Brown is said to have blocked the knighthood as a result. Jobs’ appearance at the conference would have been a major score for Brown, and according to the report, he took Jobs’ refusal personally. More →

We last heard from the HTC EVO Shift 4G / HTC Knight / HTC Speedy last week when it popped up in a new series of accessory shots. It was a safe bet that we would soon be seeing more of Sprint’s HTC Desire Z iteration, and the weekend provided two new tidbits. The first is a new image of the device — the first clear image where we can see its four-line QWERTY keypad. The image shows the phone sitting in a protective case that adds some bulk, however, but picture a shrunken EVO 4G with a sliding QWERTY and you’re good to go. The second piece of the puzzle that may have fallen into place over the weekend is a release date: January 9th. This is pretty close to the date we reported back in October — January 6th — and it falls in line with Sprint’s tendency to launch new devices on Sundays. Our date, which also happens to be the first day of CES next month, is likely when we’ll see this puppy announced.

Hit the jump for a screen shot that supports the January 9th release date. More →

We just received some more information on the device known as the HTC Knight. In addition to a3.7-inch display, the HTC Knight will, in fact, sport a sliding QWERTY keyboard and 4G connectivity. The phone will also rock an 8-megapixel camera, and most excitingly, will possibly be powered by a dual core processor. Our source saw an early unit that had a 1GHz CPU, but he believes it’s possible there will be a dual core processor at launch. This seems to be Sprint’s version of the HTC Desire Z, as previously reported — and it’s not looking like a flagship phone at this point in time. If not, we have to wonder what else Sprint is cooking up right now.

What do we have here? The folks over at xda-developers have posted the above picture; an HTC Android phone purportedly named “Knight.” The phone rocks a 3.7-inch screen, akin to the Nexus One, and resembles a smaller EVO 4G with its four rounded soft-keys. The site’s source was unsure about an exact release date but does expect an official announcement “soon.” According to XDA, the phone sports a “hinge” of some sort; whether it’s a slide-out QWERTY, or a HTC Surround-esque speaker, remains to be seen. What are your thoughts on the 3.7-inch screen?